Renewable energy companies have begun work on new onshore windfarms in England for the first time in almost a decade after the new government reversed restrictions the Conservatives had put in place on turbines.

At least half a dozen renewables developers have begun identifying potential sites for full-scale windfarms in England after the Labour party swept to power last week with the promise to make Britain a clean energy superpower.

The new schemes are expected to renew the supply of onshore projects that are essential to the government’s plan to double Britain’s onshore wind capacity to 30GW by 2030.

Currently the only onshore windfarms in England’s planning pipeline are projects using one or two turbines, located on private property. The Guardian revealed last year that Ukraine built more onshore wind turbines than England in 2022 despite Russia’s invasion. But Labour’s decision to reform planning rules mean larger onshore windfarms could return to England by the end of the decade.

One of the UK’s biggest wind developers, Germany’s RWE, said it began identifying viable sites to develop onshore windfarms “some time ago”, in advance of Labour’s victory, and expects its pipeline of new projects to develop “quite quickly”.

Other energy companies including EDF Renewables, RES Group, Coriolis Energy and Ridge Energy have also confirmed that they are moving forward with plans for potential onshore windfarm projects in England.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said: “The onshore wind ban was in place for nine years, and this government has removed it in 72 hours. We are wasting no time in investing in the clean homegrown energy that our country needs to lower bills and make Britain energy independent. We welcome investors responding to this announcement by moving forward with plans to invest in Britain’s clean energy future.”

RES Group, the Hertfordshire-based company which built England’s second ever windfarm in the early 1990s, has confirmed that it is considering a return to full-scale English projects in the future.

Ian Hunt, the global head of asset management for RES Group, said: “England is definitely a core market for us. But each project will be judged on its own merits and in light of the impact it might have on the environment and local communities.”

Trevor Hunter, a development manager from Coriolis Energy, said his company was considering half a dozen sites in England. Coriolis began undertaking bird migration surveys for sites in England “a good year ago” in anticipation of “where we believed things were going politically”, he said.

Industry sources believe that the return of onshore windfarms to England will face less opposition from local communities than prior to the Conservative government’s effective ban. This is due to technological advances which mean that fewer turbines are required to generate the same amount of clean electricity, and better financial incentives for local communities.

“There has also been a change in mindset in the last decade,” Hunt said. “People can see the effects of climate change, and they know that onshore wind can help emissions and bring down bills. There is a far greater level of public acceptance now.”

But, despite the fresh interest, industry analysts fear that the new Labour government may still struggle to meet its pledge to double Britain’s onshore wind capacity by 2030.

Energy data provider ICIS has predicted that the UK will miss its 2030 onshore wind target because it was “difficult to envisage a new government being timely enough” to improve the approval process and attract enough new projects before the end of the decade.

James Robottom, Renewable UK’s head of policy, said restarting an industry “will take time” because onshore windfarms can take up to seven years to develop, depending on their size and whether a grid connection is available.

“But we do know there is strong interest from developers, businesses and communities which are already exploring sites in England,” Robottom said. “We’ll be excited to see early community engagement and detailed environmental monitoring work on prospective sites starting soon.”

The Joe Biden re-election campaign is now a situation where you want to put your hands over your eyes even when your hands are already over your eyes. Like mine, all your sets of hands may have been clamped tightly to your lids since Biden’s franchise-killing performance in the first presidential debate 12 days ago, which his press secretary incredibly handwaved away by stating: “He had a cold”. A cold what? A cold sweat? A cold day in hell? A cold dead hand he’d like you to prise the nomination out of?

In news that launched a million grimace emojis, the answer turns out to be: all of the above. Biden is on a fightback. Yesterday he railed against “elites” in the Democratic party, proudly deploying that great Donald Trump innovation whereby the actual president is somehow not an elite. In a strongly worded letter you strongly know was worded by someone else, Biden ordered the Democrats to stop worrying and love the bomb (I lightly paraphrase). A neurologist repeatedly came to the White House last year to treat other people who work there, the White House insists, while Biden last week told a meeting of governors that he was fine, reportedly adding, “It’s just my brain”. OK! Last Friday, he gave a sit-down interview in which he was asked how he’d feel if he clung on in the race then lost to Trump. “As long as I gave it my all, and did as good of a job as I know I can do,” Biden judged, “that’s what this is about.”

Factcheck: I’m being told that is not at all what the forthcoming US presidential election is about. And listen, before we go on, please save your embossed letterhead/well-meaning digital death threats. I already know who much the worst candidate is. Furthermore – and it’s just a personal thing – I would very, very much like to see him beaten. Huge fan of American democracy here, which is to say – huge fan of the country of America having democracy. In fact, speaking of colds, you’ve probably heard the expression “When America sneezes, the world catches a cold”. Most of us in the droplet radius have zero clinical interest in discovering what the world catches when America does … whatever this is.

Which makes it somewhat painful that I am currently looking at White House-issued instruction pictures taken from the wings of various stages, about 10 footsteps from where you’d expect any occupier of those stages to make a speech – pictures with the heading: “walk to podium”. These are the leaked official templates for those guiding Biden through forthcoming events. There will doubtless be plenty on hand to claim that this is standard procedure when event planning at this level, to which the only reasonable response is: please, please tell that to the countless millions with access to televisions and the internet who have already seen Biden struggle with any number of stage entrances and exits! Please tell that to the optics! Please tell that to the vibes! In the meantime, please tell it to my subconscious because every time I look at one of these pictures it immediately rearranges itself into the image of a yawning hellchasm, beneath the heading “walk to the abyss”.

This is all more than beginning to feel like the path over the edge, which the Democratic establishment has thoughtfully plotted out by its truly timeworn tactic of hoping for the best, and in no way preparing for the worst. What’s the worst that can happen, ask people who already saw the worst happen once before. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice … autocracy? As far as Biden’s cognitive state is concerned, if only there had been different signs to all the signs there were.

Then again, only last year did the Democratic leadership in the House – which had a combined age of 973 or something – finally begin giving way to some non-thinned blood, having clung on in varying stages of decline out of … what? Selflessness? A fundamental/fundamentalist belief that they were the good guys? Forget the audacity of hope – this is the obnoxiousness of hope. The arc of history is now bending in the direction of the hellchasm. Why should it be a toss-up between Trump and a guy who in all conscience no one should say is operating without impairment? How dare this be the choice? This, alas, is the other reflection sparked by those “walk to podium” instruction manuals. Oh NOW you’re planning every last detail! Well, it’s like they say – micromanage all the tiny little things now and it absolutely won’t matter that you macro-fucked-up the big thing back when finessing a change wouldn’t have been a last-minute scramble.

Possibly the only minuscule bright spot currently are the amusing scenes in Hollywood, where starry donors are reportedly turning on Jeffrey Katzenberg, the DreamWorks co-founder-turned-Biden campaign co-chair, for supposedly concealing the president’s true state of mental fitness from them, and making them part with infinitesimal percentages of their money. As the Endeavor mogul Ari Emanuel remarked mildly last week: “We are in Fuck City”. (On the plus side for Katzenberg, the worst thing he’s ever done is no longer Quibi.)

None of this is how healthy democracies operate. Non-democracies? Oh yes. Petro-state princes are kept alive in western hospitals long after natural causes have kicked in, with their vast dependent entourages somehow unwilling to switch off the life support machine, what with it being directly connected to the cash tap. The Russians used to joke about Brezhnev that his daily routine ran as follows: reanimation, makeup, banquet, awards ceremony, clinical death. The people couldn’t do a whole lot about it, but they knew. Everyone knew. Spitting Image portrayed his successor-but-one, Konstantin Chernenko, as something kept in the freezer and only reanimated when occasion demanded. There are currently flashes of this vein of satire in every opening monologue on the US late-night TV shows.

As far as ways forward go, there are not exactly a whole load of tried and tested walks-to-podium. But the Democrats have surely exhausted the limits of irrational hope as a victory strategy. The gruelling presidential campaign has not even got fully under way. In the absence of a candidate who appears consistently rational, rational solutions must be found. In the meantime, we might prepare some simple briefing notes of our own for Biden’s strategists. You’re not going to defeat the world’s biggest “anti-elite” conman by railing against “elites” in the Democratic party. You’re not going to defeat the world’s biggest liar by being economical with your own actualité. And you’re not going to defeat the world’s biggest gaslighter by gaslighting people in your own way. There’s more than one way to be a hero. Sometimes the greatest legacy is knowing when to walk from the podium.

• Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

• Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

1. If you live in France, you can watch global warming happening live on the evening news – and it’s a hit with viewers

The woman behind this landmark innovation is Audrey Cerdan of France Televisions, France’s public broadcaster.

As announced on Tuesday, Cerdan is one of three winners of a 2024 journalist of the year award by our organization, Covering Climate Now, which for the past five years has been helping hundreds of newsrooms worldwide cover the climate crisis.

At a time when extreme heat is leaving hundreds dead from Mexico to India, when a category 5 hurricane is “flattening” entire islands in the Caribbean, and when US supreme court rulings are granting corporate polluters and their political patrons unprecedented legal protections, Cerdan and 50 additional Covering Climate Now Journalism Award winners are a stirring antidote to climate despair.

Their work demonstrates that telling the climate story well helps the public understand not only that the world is on fire, but also how to put the fire out.

In March 2023, France Télévisions stopped including a traditional weather report in its 8pm newscast and replaced it with a weather-climate report: in French, a Journal Météo-Climat.

Viewers of the new weather-climate report still saw maps dotted with numbers depicting the day’s high and low temperatures in Paris, Marseilles and other cities in France. The on-camera presenter, Anaïs Baydemir, still told them whether it would rain or shine tomorrow. But now, that basic weather news was communicated in the context of climate change.

From the opening seconds of the report, stretching across the bottom of the screen was a row of blue-and-white digits. The digits depicted, to an exactitude of eight decimal points, how much hotter France was now compared to a century ago, before humans’ burning of large amounts of coal, oil and gas began trapping excessive heat in the atmosphere.

The night Journal Météo-Climat premiered, on 13 March 2023, the dashboard registered 1.18749861C above the pre-industrial level. After 37 seconds, the dashboard’s last digit clicked up a notch to 1.18749862C; then, after two minutes and 28 seconds, another notch to 1.18749873C.

That was global warming, happening and presented in real time – an explicit rebuttal of the lie that climate change is somehow a hoax.

Within weeks, France Televisions’ ratings for that part of its evening news began climbing, according to the network. Cerdan, who spearheaded the innovation, credits the ratings boost partly to the fact that most of the show’s segments included a viewer’s question about climate change, answered by a scientist. (For example: will France still have four seasons under climate change? Yes, but they will be hotter.)

In short, if journalists tell the climate story in a creative way that genuinely helps people make sense of the world around them, people will watch or read that news.

2. Members of frontline communities often tell the climate story best

For this year’s awards, CCNow’s judges evaluated more than 1,250 entries from every corner of the globe. The reporting in the places most affected by the climate crisis stood out for its urgency, its compassion, and its commitment to telling personal stories.

For example, a second CCNow journalist of the year winner is Tristan Ahtone, a member of the Kiowa Tribe who wrote a blistering expose for Grist about US universities profiting from oil and gas production on stolen Indigenous lands.

A third “Journalist of the Year” is Rachel Ramirez, a climate reporter for CNN, whose upbringing in the Northern Marianas Islands informs her reporting on climate change’s disproportionate impact on women and girls and other issues of climate justice.

3. Climate crisis is a crime story

The planet didn’t overheat itself. Some of the best climate reporting highlights who the bad guys are, what they’re trying to get away with, and how they can be held accountable. The UK-based Centre for Climate Reporting, in collaboration with the BBC, revealed how Sultan Al Jaber – the CEO of the United Arab Emirates’ state-run oil company and president of the COP28 UN climate summit – used the latter role to lobby for oil and gas. Agence France-Presse reported that the global consultant firm McKinsey & Company, which publicly supports climate action, nevertheless used Cop28 to promote its clients’ plans to continue oil and gas production for years to come.

4. There is incredible bravery in some of the best climate reporting

Sometimes that bravery means angering sources who then no longer talk to you, or stirring up the trolls on social media. Other times, bravery takes a much more serious form.

In June 2022, the British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira were killed in the Vale do Javari, the second-largest indigenous area in Brazil, apparently in retaliation for their journalism exposing the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

In 2023, 16 news outlets around the world, led by the Paris-based network Forbidden Stories, joined together to continue Phillips’s and Pereira’s work. Forbidden Stories’ investigations revealed how illegal industry and organized crime continue to stymie protection of the Amazon, whose health is vital to its Indigenous inhabitants and the world’s climate future.

5. There is good news on the climate beat

Solar, wind, storage batteries and other pillars of the green economy are growing by leaps and bounds, as mainstream business media have reported. But less publicized are solutions emerging from the grassroots, including in some of the most climate-vulnerable locations on earth. IndiaSpend, a digital outlet in India, won its award by profiling a frontline community’s ingenious efforts to cope with drought, illustrating how local knowledge and involvement can be key to successful climate change adaptation.

Covering Climate Now has long maintained that better news coverage is itself an essential climate solution. Without it, there simply won’t be the mass awareness and public pressure to drive governments, business, and society as a whole to make the rapid, far-reaching changes required to preserve a liveable planet.

The 51 winners of 2024 Covering Climate Now Journalism awards are certainly doing their part. We hope their example inspires fellow journalists everywhere to do the same.

When the sowing began on the coastline of south-west England, conservationists warned it may take a little while for the new wildflower meadows to flourish fully.

But 18 months on, a vibrant display of blooms has popped up in north Devon, a joy for human visitors and a draw for precious birds, insects and mammals.

The idea is to create a network of flower-filled grasslands sweeping from the fringes of sandy beaches to moorland edges.

Eventually, the National Trust plans to plant up more than 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) of land in north Devon, the charity’s largest ever wildflower grasslands project.

The first phase, 90 hectares at Woolacombe, Vention and South Hole, is being heralded a success, with oxeye daises, bird’s-foot trefoil and viper’s bugloss appearing and initial monitoring showing an increase of wildflower coverage from 2% to 40%.

There have been sightings of the brown-banded carder bee, meadow grasshopper and common blue butterfly, as well as birds such as swifts, skylarks, house martins and meadow pipits. Greater horseshoe bats dart across the meadows at dusk.

Joshua Day, a project coordinator at the National Trust in north Devon, said: “The sense of anticipation through the last two winters has been high, watching and waiting for the first successful seedlings to emerge.

“This first full bloom is an indication of success for the future of species-rich grasslands here in Devon, returning a diverse range of wild flowers to the countryside which will, in turn, benefit nature and ourselves.”

Species-rich grasslands are rare, with only 1% of flower-filled meadows remaining in the UK, and are among the most threatened habitats in Britain.

Seeds from these first meadows will be collected by rangers and volunteers to create more sites elsewhere. Every hectare harvested will provide enough seed to sow two more hectares of meadows.

By 2030, 1,275 hectares (3,151 acres) of grassland will have been planted in north Devon. Some sites are already identified, with others to be found over the coming years.

Ben McCarthy, the National Trust’s head of nature and restoration ecology, said: “As nature in the UK continues to decline, making space for flower-rich meadows in our countryside at a landscape scale will make a real tangible difference to its recovery.”

Perched atop blackened trees, howler monkeys survey the ashes around them. A flock of emus treads, disoriented, in search of water. The skeletons of alligators lie lifeless and charred.

The Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland and one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, is on fire. Huge stretches of land resemble the aftermath of a battle, with thick green shrubbery now a carpet of white ash, and chunks of debris falling from the sky.

More than 760,000 hectares (1.8m acres) have already burned across the the Brazilian Pantanal in 2024, as fires surge to the highest levels since 2020, the worst year on record. From January to July, blazes increased by 1,500% compared with the same period last year, according to the country’s Institute for Space Research.

“The impact is devastating. Animals are dying, wildfires are vanishing huge areas,” says Gustavo Figueirôa, a biologist at SOS Pantanal, a non-governmental organisation. “We expect it is only going to get worse.”

Stretching across Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, the Pantanal covers 16.9m hectares (42m acres) and harbours rich biodiversity. It is one of the world’s main refuges for jaguars and houses a host of vulnerable and endangered species, including giant river otters, giant armadillos and hyacinth macaws. Its ecosystem is also unique. Every year its “flood pulse” sees it swell with water during the rainy season and empty throughout the dry months. But the climate crisis, droughts and weak rains have disrupted this seasonal pattern, turning the land into a tinderbox.

With the blazes starting unusually early this year – in late May and early June, before the annual fire season between July and September – experts predict 2024 will be the most devastating in decades.

“The wildfires are a signal – nature is raising a flag,” says Pierre Girard at the Federal University of Mato Grosso. “We had fires before but now thousands and thousands of hectares burn every year. We are losing the battle.”

On the banks of the Paraguay River, several hours by boat north of the nearest city of Corumbá, three children stand in their garden, their bodies intermittently concealed by smoke. Their mother, Jane Silva, 53, watches from her blue, wooden house.

“This year’s fires are really bad. There is a lot of smoke and the children are struggling to breathe,” she says. Fifty of her animals died in a recent fire, and she has received no support from the state, she says.

“The fires get worse every year – we thought this year’s fires had been extinguished, but the wind has brought them back to life. Now it is getting close again,” she says. “The Pantanal is dying, but we have nowhere to go.”

Hospitals and health centres in Corumbá are crowded with patients suffering respiratory issues, with children under five and those over 60 most affected by the smoke. But while humans can usually flee the infernos and seek medical help, animals perish in their thousands.

Reptiles and amphibians face the greatest risk, while monkeys die from smoke inhalation, and jaguars, too, have been found suffering with third-degree burns. In the 2020 fires, known as “the year of flames”, which saw almost 30% of the biome burned, 17 million vertebrates were killed.

Deep into the charred wilderness, a team of volunteer animal rescue workers search for signs of life. Luka Moraes, a 26-year-old vet, says: “In one week I have already seen hundreds and hundreds of dead animals, maybe thousands. Reptiles, snakes, frogs – all the animals that cannot run – they do not stand a chance.”

While naturally occurring blazes take place in the Pantanal, including those sparked by lightning, humans start the vast majority of wildfires. Ranchers use fires to clear land for their cattle – as they have for centuries – but those that were once contained by the wetland’s abundant water now rage out of control.

“They think that they can probably contain the fire. They have been doing it for generations. But dry matter is accumulating, and the fires spread quickly,” says Girard.

More than 90% of the Pantanal is privately owned, of which 80% is used for cattle ranching. Almost 95% of outbreaks in the first half of 2024 started in private areas, according to the National Institute for Space Research.

The wetlands have also lost 68% of their water area since 1985, and suffered a lack of rainfall over the past six months. “The Pantanal is getting drier and drier. It used to flood for six months, but now it floods only two or three months,” says Figueirôa.

Fierce winds rip across the landscape at up to 40km an hour, fuelling the flames.

André Luiz Siqueira, a director at the conservation organisation Ecoa in Brazil, explains that dead vegetation accumulates during the flood period, becoming highly combustible during the dry season. The layers of dense, built-up material “can burn underground for weeks,” he says.

Along with the important role they play for biodiversity, wetlands are also of global importance for the climate, storing 20-30% of terrestrial carbon despite covering only 5-8% of the land surface. During the 2020 fires, 115m tonnes of CO₂ were released.

Local people and experts are now calling for greater investment in fire prevention. Ivani Silva, 50, whose land in Porto Laranjeira has been thick with smoke for weeks, says she has been visited only once by authorities. “They gave us a leaflet with instructions, but that is it. They don’t help at all and do nothing to prevent it,” she says.

The government of Mato Grosso do Sul declared an emergency situation on 24 June, while the federal government has recently expanded its wildfires taskforce. The Brazilian air force airdropped 48,000 litres of water on to the burning land last weekend.

Still, the fires burn on. Underneath the nest of a jabiru stork, the tallest flying bird found in South and Central America and the symbol of the Pantanal, the firefighter Cabo Sena, 30, works to douse the flames.

“We extinguish the fire and then, after 24 hours, it starts again,” he says.

Lucineia Oliveira, 50, who was born and still lives on the banks of the Paraguay River, says the fires have changed drastically in recent years. In 2021, she narrowly survived after a burning tree set her house alight overnight, trapping her inside with her 75-year-old mother and three-year-old grandson.

“The fire was far away when we went to sleep, but then the wind became strong and carried it to us. It happened fast,” she says. “I was desperate, we were covered in ash, my grandson was crying and my mother praying. We fell to our knees and held each other.”

Oliveira worries about what their future holds. “Every year is worse, and I am afraid,” she says. “The animals and plants and the land are dying, from the bees to the jaguars. We need even the smallest animals to be able to survive. The fires are destroying the beauty of the Pantanal.”

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features

At the World AI Conference in Shanghai last week, one of China’s leading artificial intelligence companies, SenseTime, unveiled its latest model, SenseNova 5.5.

The model showed off its ability to identify and describe a stuffed toy puppy (wearing a SenseTime cap), offered feedback on a drawing of a rabbit, and instantly read and summarised a page of text. According to SenseTime, SenseNova 5.5 is comparable with GPT-4o, the flagship artificial intelligence model of the Microsoft-backed US company OpenAI.

If that wasn’t enough to entice users, SenseTime is also giving away 50m free tokens – digital credits for using the AI – and says that it will deploy staff to help new clients migrate from OpenAI services to SenseTime’s products for free.

Chinese attempts to lure domestic developers away from OpenAI – considered the market leader in generative AI – will now be a lot easier, after OpenAI notified its users in China that they would be blocked from using its tools and services from 9 July.

“We are taking additional steps to block API traffic from regions where we do not support access to OpenAI’s services,” an OpenAI spokesperson told Bloomberg last month.

OpenAI has not elaborated about the reason for its sudden decision. ChatGPT is already blocked in China by the government’s firewall, but until this week developers could use virtual private networks to access OpenAI’s tools in order to fine-tune their own generative AI applications and benchmark their own research. Now the block is coming from the US side.

Rising tensions between Washington and Beijing have prompted the US to restrict the export to China of certain advanced semiconductors that are vital for training the most cutting-edge AI technology, putting pressure on other parts of the AI industry.

The OpenAI move has “caused significant concern within China’s AI community” said Xiaohu Zhu, the founder of the Shanghai-based Centre for Safe AGI, which promotes AI safety, not least because “the decision raises questions about equitable access to AI technologies globally”.

But it has also created an opportunity for domestic AI companies such as SenseTime, which are scrambling to hoover up OpenAI’s rejected users. After warnings about OpenAI’s decision circulated last month, Baidu offered 50m free tokens for its Ernie 3.5 AI model, as well as free migration services, while Zhipu AI, another local company, offered 150m free tokens for its model. Tencent Cloud is giving away 100m free tokens for its AI model to new users until the end of July. “Competitors are offering migration pathways for former OpenAI users, seeing this as an opportunity to expand their user base,” said Zhu.

One consequence of OpenAI’s decision may be that it accelerates the development of Chinese AI companies, which are in tight competition with their US rivals, as well as each other. China is estimated to have at least 130 large language models, accounting for 40% of the world’s total and second only to the US. But while US companies such as OpenAI have been at the cutting edge of generative AI, Chinese companies have been engaged in a price war that some analysts have speculated may harm their profit margins and their ability to innovate. Still, Winston Ma, a professor at New York University who writes about Chinese technology, said OpenAI’s departure from China comes “at a time when Chinese big tech players are closing on performance gap with OpenAI and are offering these Chinese LLM models essentially free”.

“OpenAI’s departure is a short-term shock to the China market, but it may provide a long-term opportunity for Chinese domestic LLM models to be put to the real test,” said Ma. Until now, Chinese companies have focused on the commercialisation of large language models rather than advancing the models themselves, he added.

Chinese commentators have been keen to brush off the impact of OpenAI’s decision. State media outlet the Global Times said it was “a push from the US to hamper China’s technology development”. Pan Helin, a digital economy researcher at Zhejiang University who sits on a government technology committee, described the development as “a good thing for China’s large-scale model independence and self-reliance”, according to Chinese media.

But there are signs that the US restrictions on China’s AI industry are starting to bite. The online video giant Kuaishou recently had to restrict the number of people who could access its new text-to-video AI model, Kling, because of a lack of computing capacity caused by a shortage of chips, according to a report in The Information. And there is now a booming hidden market for US semiconductors, as companies find ways to circumvent the sanctions. Being blocked from US software may inspire similar creativity.

Joe Biden’s position among congressional Democrats eroded further on Monday when an influential House committee member lent his voice to calls for him to end his presidential campaign following last month’s spectacular debate failure.

Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the armed services committee in the House of Representatives, issued the plea just hours after the president emphatically rejected calls for him to step aside in a letter to the party’s congressional contingent.

Biden had also expressed determination to continue in an unscheduled phone interview with the MSNBC politics show Morning Joe.

But in a clear sign such messaging may be falling on deaf ears, Smith suggested that sentiments of voters that he was too old to be an effective candidate and then president for the next four years was clear from opinion polls.

“The president’s performance in the debate was alarming to watch and the American people have made it clear they no longer see him as a credible candidate to serve four more years as president,” Smith, a congressman from Washington state, said in a statement.

“Since the debate, the president has not seriously addressed these concerns.”

He said the president should stand aside “as soon as possible”, though he qualified it by saying he would support him “unreservedly” if he insisted on remaining as the nominee.

But his statement’s effect was driven home in a later interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, one of the two moderators in the 27 June debate with Donald Trump in which Biden’s hoarse-voiced and frequently confused performance and demeanour plunged his re-election campaign into existential crisis.

“Personally, I think Kamala Harris [the vice-president] would be a much better, stronger candidate,” Smith told Tapper, adding that Biden was “not the best person to carry the Democratic message”.

He implicitly criticised Democratic colleagues – and Biden campaign staff – who were calling for the party to put the debate behind them as “one bad night”.

“A lot of Democrats are saying: ‘Well let’s move on, let’s stop talking about it’,” said Smith. “We are not the ones who are bringing it up. The country is bringing it up. And the campaign strategy of ‘be quiet and fall in line and let’s ignore it’ simply isn’t working.”

Smith joins the ranks of five Democratic members of Congress who publicly demanded Biden’s withdrawal last week. He was among at least four others who spoke in favour of it privately in a virtual meeting on Sunday with Hakeem Jeffries, the party’s leader in the House.

Having the ranking member of the armed services committee join the siren voices urging his withdrawal may be particularly damaging to Biden’s cause in a week when he is to host a summit of Nato leaders in Washington.

The alliance’s heads of government and state will gather in the US capital on Tuesday for an event that is likely to increase the international spotlight on Biden, who is due to give a rare press conference on its final day on Thursday, an occasion likely to be scrutinised for further misstatements and evidence of declining cognitive faculties. Unscripted appearances have been rare in Biden’s three-and-a-half-year tenure.

In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last Friday, Biden stressed his role in expanding Nato’s membership and leading its military aid programme to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion as a key element of his qualification to continue as his party’s nominee and be re-elected as president.

In the surprise interview with Morning Joe on Monday, Biden put the blame for his current predicament on Democratic elites, an undefined designation which he may now expand to include Smith.

As the 2022 tennis season began to wind down in the cold indoor stadiums across Europe, Novak Djokovic found himself in an unusual situation. In the final of the Paris Masters that November, the Serb’s high level would have been sufficient to defeat many adversaries, but for once his opponent was even better. That night, a fearless 19-year-old named Holger Rune toppled Djokovic to win his first Masters 1000 title.

Performing at the highest level week in, week out, though, is a much greater task than producing occasional, early flashes of brilliance. Two years on from that striking encounter, Rune has not made as much progress as he hoped and, this time, the match-up was rather a mismatch. Under the Centre Court roof on Monday evening, an excellent Djokovic thoroughly outplayed Rune and silenced the crowd, returning to the quarter-finals of Wimbledon with a comfortable 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 win.

The match was also notable for the crowd’s cheers, with spectators bellowing “Ruuuune” throughout the evening in a deep, elongated chant that sounded similar to booing. After his victory, Djokovic thanked the respectful parts of the crowd and criticised those who he felt disrespected him. When the on-court interviewer suggested that fans may have just been supporting Rune rather than disrespecting him, Djokovic responded:

“They were, I don’t accept it,” he said. “No. I know they were cheering for Rune but that’s an excuse to also boo. Listen, I’ve been on the tour for more than 20 years, so trust me, I know all the tricks. I know how it works. It’s fine, it’s OK. I focus on the respectful people, who have respect, that paid the ticket to come and watch tonight, and love tennis and appreciate the effort that the players put in here. I’ve played in a much more hostile environment, trust me. You guys can’t touch me.”

The victory marks a 15th career quarter-final for Djokovic at Wimbledon and a 60th major quarter-final. Regardless of how far he goes, it already ranks as one of his most remarkable quarter-final runs. Just 26 days before Wimbledon began, Djokovic underwent surgery on the torn medial meniscus that forced him to withdraw from the quarter-finals of the French Open.

At the time, it seemed reasonable to assume that Djokovic might not be present at Wimbledon in any form, particularly with the Olympics looming a few weeks later on clay. Instead, he continues to beat quality tennis players, to grow with every round and he remains a clear title contender even with the tournament favourites still present in the draw.

Between his breakthrough win over Djokovic in Paris and his rise to a top-four ranking last year, for some time Rune seemed to be the young player closest to breaking through after Carlos Alcaraz. But this sport is not easy. While Alcaraz has continued to soar and Jannik Sinner has stepped up, this has not been a straightforward year for Rune. His lack of confidence was reflected in his very first service game here, the 15th seed throwing in a horrible, error-strewn game to lose his serve and trail 2-0. Djokovic won the first 12 points of the match.

Throughout the match, Djokovic served well, dictated most exchanges from the baseline and cycled through his arsenal of shots well, keeping Rune guessing with drop shots and net approaches while remaining solid in key moments. As the crowd’s cheers became louder, Djokovic gestured towards some members of the audience. Still, he remained extremely solid as he closed out the win.

“To all the fans that have respect and stayed here tonight, thank you from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate it,” Djokovic said. “And to all the fans who have chosen to disrespect me, have a gooood night,” he added, referencing the “Rune” chants.

For his part, Rune did not see any issue with the crowd’s behaviour and he referenced fans attempting similar chants during their meeting in 2021. “If you don’t know what was happening, probably it sounded like ‘boo’. But if we all know what happened, it was my name. Obviously he’s played so many matches since he played me last time. If he didn’t remember, it could probably sound different for him. I don’t think it played a massive part in the match,” said Rune.

Djokovic will next face Alex de Minaur, the ninth seed, in quarter-final No 60 on Wednesday. Earlier, De Minaur defeated Arthur Fils 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.

The Australian suffered an injury scare at the end of the match after sliding out to his forehand, but he later said he was OK. Taylor Fritz, seeded 13th, continued to play some of the best tennis of his career as he pulled off a spectacular comeback from two sets down to defeat Alexander Zverev, the fourth seed, 4-6, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (3), 6-3.

David Cameron has left Rishi Sunak’s frontbench as the Conservatives unveiled an interim shadow ministerial team ahead of a party leadership race.

The party said Lord Cameron, the former foreign secretary, and Richard Holden, who chaired the Tories through the disastrous election campaign, had resigned from Sunak’s top team. Andrew Mitchell, who had the largely honorary title of deputy foreign secretary in government, becomes shadow foreign secretary.

Sunak is leader of the opposition until he is replaced, and Jeremy Hunt and James Cleverly are staying on as shadow chancellor and shadow home secretary. Oliver Dowden remains Sunak’s deputy.

Most of the other changes are connected to former ministers losing their seats or stepping down, with many replaced by former junior ministers from the same department.

James Cartlidge has taken over from Ben Wallace on defence, Ed Argar replaces Alex Chalk on justice; Damian Hinds takes the place of Gillian Keegan on education; Julia Lopez takes over from Lucy Frazer on culture; and Andrew Griffith replaces Michelle Donelan in the science and technology brief.

Kemi Badenoch has changed jobs, moving from business secretary to shadow communities secretary, taking the brief from Michael Gove who stepped down as an MP. One of her former junior ministers, Kevin Hollinrake, takes over at business.

Chris Philp, the former policing minister, has been given the role of shadow Commons leader after Penny Mordaunt, who did the equivalent job in government, lost her seat.

Writing on X after his resignation was announced, Cameron said: “It’s been a huge honour to serve as foreign secretary, but clearly the Conservative party in opposition will need to shadow the new foreign secretary from the Commons.

“So I told Rishi Sunak that I would step back. I’m delighted that the shadow foreign secretary role has gone to my good friend Andrew Mitchell. As a committed Conservative I will continue to support the party and help where I can as we rebuild from the very disappointing election result.”

Among former ministers who have stayed in the same brief are Victoria Atkins in health, Steve Barclay in environment, Mel Stride as shadow work and pension secretary and Claire Coutinho shadowing on energy security and net zero.

Among other replacements, Helen Whately, who was social care minister, becomes shadow transport secretary after Mark Harper, the transport secretary, lost his seat.

In place of Holden, Richard Fuller, a Bedfordshire MP since 2010, has been made interim party chair.

Fuller said: “The Conservative party has had a difficult election and it is important that we regroup and reflect on these results. We should also challenge ourselves candidly and deeply on the strengths of the Conservative party across the country and outline where improvements can be made. United as a party, we will be ready and able to hold this new Labour government to account every step of the way.”

Whoever replaces Sunak as leader would be expected to appoint their own shadow cabinet. The timetable for choosing the new leader has not yet been set, with differences in the party over how quickly it should be done.

Allies of Sunak say he does not intend to stay on beyond the summer, meaning the Conservatives could face the prospect of having to appoint an interim leader if the contest goes on for several more months.